#WriterWednesday Author Interview with Patrick Sangimino

I’d like to welcome Patrick Sangimino to the blog for #WriterWednesday!

Things you need when you’re in your writing cave: Most of all, I need to be ready to write. It’s a mental state. Once there, music is a requirement, with no lyrics. Jazz or classical. With words, I find myself singing, which hinders my ability to get lost in the story I’m trying to tell.

Things that distract you from writing: Conversation. Human interaction. I love good conversations. Unfortunately, they can’t happen when I am in a writing zone. Years of working in a newsroom – surrounded by others – trained me. I learned to put on headphones when it was time to write.

Favorite snacks: Without question: Nothing fancy. Poporn or chips and salsa. Maybe some fruit.

Things that make you want to gag: tofu, definitely tofu.

Something you’re really good at: I’ve been told I am a great storyteller. I’ve made a living telling stories in the written form but have entertained loved ones with my ability to tell a story that will cause laughter.

Something you’re really bad at: Playing any kind of musical instrument, guitar especially. I have a profound respect for musicians and their ability to make magic. Much of that respect comes from my own lifetime of musical failures that have become some of the stories in my repertoire.

Something you wanted to be when you were a kid: Originally, I wanted to be a lawyer, but that ambition changed the first time I saw Jack Klugman in the old sit-com “The Odd Couple.” From that point on, I wanted to be a sportswriter.

Something you do that you never dreamed you’d do: After years as a newspaper columnist, writing a book always seemed like a bridge too far. And then I found the wherewithal to write one. Holding it in my hand for the first time – seeing my name on the cover – was an emotional experience.

Something you wish you could do: I wish I could play the piano. I always wanted to be that guy who could walk up to a piano at a party or crowded barroom and belt out something that would leave people speechless.

Something you wish you’d never learned to do: While paining houses – interiors and exteriors – is a good skill to have acquired, it’s something that friends and family members have taken advantage of over the years. As if helping to paint your best friend’s house over the course of a weekend can be compensated with pizza and beer. The things we do for love.

Last best thing you ate: The crab cioppino at a small family-owned Italian restaurant in San Francisco.

Last thing you regret eating: The four-alarm buffalo wings at a national chain. The wings were good at that moment. The heart burn that followed wasn’t nearly as pleasant.

Favorite places you’ve been: St. Thomas, the U.S. Virgin Islands. Great beaches and weather. Clean place with friendly people. Wonderful food and a good place to recharge.

Places you never want to go to again: Las Vegas. Sin City earned its monicker. And while, I’m not a prude, such sin comes with a heavy price tag – figuratively and literally – I’m not willing to pay anymore.

People you’d like to invite to dinner (living): Billy Joel, Warren Buffet, Paul Giamatti and Tiger Woods.

People you’d cancel dinner on: Any politician, television evangelist or anyone who judges someone else simply by who they voted for.

Favorite things to do: I adore being outside, working in the garden or playing golf. I also enjoy going to a ballpark on a warm day to watch school-aged kids – say, ages 12-18 – with a passion for the game and enough skills to catch my attention – play baseball.

Things you’d run through a fire or eat bugs to get out of doing: Paying the high-dollar costs for parking, concessions and entry to the ballpark to watch professional ball players, without a doubt world-class athletes, often times go through the motions while taking part in a game once meant to be played by children. Ironically, there was a time when I earned my daily bread by chronicling their daily endeavors. Sports writing, it’s been said, is a young man’s game.

Best thing you’ve ever done: My daughter is evidence that I did something right in this world. She is smart (an attorney), funny and grew up with a love for “Seinfeld” reruns and an early knowledge of how to read the Major League Baseball box scores each morning. She’s a daddy’s girl and the apple of my eye.

Biggest mistake: My biggest regret is failing at marriage. Two meaningful careers took precedence over what should have been a happily-ever-after. We never factored job relocations into the equation. Happily, my ex-wife has become a dear friend, but our divorce is my greatest failure.

The funniest thing to happen to you: Running a five-kilometer race the morning after staying up to hit a late-night deadline was an achievement, especially since I ran a personal best. However, just a few steps from the finish line, I threw up, sending my morning coffee spewing like a geyser toward those congratulating the finishers. It was a moment that was captured and chronicled in my best friend’s next column.

The most embarrassing thing to happen to you: My embarrassing moment has evolved to shame. My bad behavior as a boy after my father’s best effort to turn my bicycle into a motocross by painting my handlebars black and screwing a broomstick across the bars, a makeshift renovation that was ridiculed by my friends. Years later, I am more embarrassed by the way I lashed out at my father, who was only trying to give me something our family just couldn’t afford.

About Patrick:

Patrick Sangimino worked as a journalist for over forty years, writing for large newspapers throughout California and the Midwest. He worked during the print journalism golden age and saw it slowly shift into the digital age. From beat reporter to award-winning columnist, Patrick wrote about some of the biggest sporting stories of all time, including eight seasons of the National Football League, World Series games, and local legends who made athletic history.

A self-described “ink-in-the-veins” writer, Patrick was not merely a journalist, he was a weaver of tales. His craft was motivated by a native curiosity, relentless doggedness in pursuit of fact, and the deeply human understanding that accompanied membership in the communities he served. His columns were read devotionally, acclaimed for their humor, pathos, and biting acuity.

Having retired in 2024, Patrick devoted himself to fiction. But whereas his columns were anchored firmly in the real world, so too is his fiction. Dogs Chase Cars is his first novel, but it feels like the accumulation of a lifetime of experience unvarnished, perceptive, sometimes self-aware, always uncompromisingly truthful.

Sangimino now spends his retirement doing what he’s always done best writing. Whether looking back or making up stories for the future, his pen still pursues meaning, memory, and perhaps a little bit of mischief.

Let’s Be Social:

Website: www.patricksangimino.com

Instagram: @patricksangimino

Twitter or XL: @psangimino

 Facebook: @patsangimino